Since last September 22, the Helisinki airport has had some very special workers. It is a group of dogs capable of detecting COVID-19.
The dogs, trained by Wise Nose, a company specializing in training dogs that identify specific odors (including cancer), can detect the coronavirus with almost 100% certainty in 10 seconds , according to preliminary tests carried out by a group of researchers. from the Veterinary Faculty of the University of Helsinki. In addition, they can identify the virus up to days before symptoms of the disease begin.
Dogs can also identify COVID-19 from a much smaller sample than the PCRs used by healthcare workers. The difference is significant, as a dog only needs 10-100 molecules to identify Sars-CoV2, while the test kit requires 18,000,000.
The dynamics is as follows. The person being tested rubs their skin with a special wipe that will collect their sweat and places it in a cup. Next, the dog’s trainer, who is in the next room with the animal, places the cup with the sample next to cans that contain other scents. It is now when the work of the animal begins, which will detect if there is a virus or not.
At no time does the animal come into contact with the patient , as it is in a different space, nor does the person who works with the dog with the sample, thus reducing the possibility of contagion. In addition, the annoying sampling in the nasopharyngeal area is eliminated.
Not all passengers have to be tested. At the moment this service is voluntary and is specially designed for travelers arriving from abroad.
The initiative aims to speed up the process of identifying people infected with COVID-19 and make the airport a safer place. Currently ten more dogs are being trained to detect the virus.
In the future, the Wise Nose dogs are expected to be replaced by Customs canids.
In recent months, international airports have introduced various methods to detect the virus in travelers, including saliva tests, temperature checks and nasal swabs. However, researchers in Finland say that using dogs could be cheaper, faster and more effective.
